Mozambican Robotics Student Invents Futuristic Smart Glasses For Visually Impaired
Chau is the prototype tester for Joao Antonio Rego, a 24-year-old robotics and electronic engineering student driven to provide visually impaired Mozambicans with assistance that goes beyond a simple cane.
Since he lost his sight 20 years ago, the 45-year-old father has not worked and rarely leaves his home in Matola, outside the capital Maputo.
Rego's electronic glasses -- battery-powered devices embedded with sensors that scan for obstacles ahead and emit warning vibrations -- offer the promise of new possibilities.
"It is vibrating ... it is those bushes," Chau said, demonstrating for AFP Rego's Vision Hope 0.2. "Maybe, there is a window here... yes."
"Because of these obstacles, it vibrates. So I go back," he said. "It stopped. See? Then it says there is something on this side... When I turn, it is quiet."
Resembling a virtual reality eye mask, this is Rego's latest prototype since he launched his Vision Hope project in 2021, winning Mozambique's Young Creative Award for technological innovation the following year.
New features include a larger 120-degree range and more accurate sensors, explained Rego, a student at Eduardo Mondlane University.
The battery, attached to a strap that is worn over a shoulder, is on a smart system that saves power and warns when it is running low. A GPS allows others to know the whereabouts of the user.
Inspiration
Rego is already working on improvements in his dining room workshop.
"I want the next version to have sensors capable of detecting very thin obstacles like wires and threads," he told AFP. "The coating also needs to be waterproof," he said.
Slim and serious, Rego was inspired to help when, years ago, he saw a visually impaired woman fall in a busy street in downtown Maputo, said his mother, Helena Inacio.
"Seeing that woman on the ground disturbed him. He vowed that he would create glasses," she told AFP.
She had asked: "'Glasses for what? So that blind people can see?' He said, 'No, to give direction.'"
"I thought it was fantasy," Inacio said.
Rego moved his lab out of his bedroom for better ventilation after a health scare led a doctor to warn about the risks of fumes from his soldering work.
"I had health problems and after an X-ray, they said there were some spots on my lungs which might have been caused by chemical fumes, like tin. It was temporary, but I must always take precautions," he said.
Independence
Rego's own vision is to secure partnerships that will allow him to one day produce and distribute his glasses across his impoverished country, where nearly 2.7 million people suffer vision loss, according to the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness.
Chau, who lost his sight after falling ill in 2005 and undergoing treatment in hospital, has made some suggestions for the next iteration.
"I told him to first improve the roadside verification system," he said. He would also like a sensor that can detect the pools of stagnant water that are common in his area.
And, if possible, a way for detected obstacles to be identified. "A system that communicates... about what kind of obstacle is in front of me, if it is a human being, a car," he said.
"If the glasses are made the way I suggest, it will help us a lot, me and many other visually impaired people out there," said Chau.
When they are in production and he can get his own pair, the glasses will give Chau a new lease of life, said his wife, Felizarda Nhampule.
"Sometimes he stays here at home alone while I go out and do my errands. Sometimes he wants to go out somewhere but can't," she said.
"With the glasses, he will be able to visit his friends and get rid of the boredom of staying at home. In case of an emergency, he can go and seek help from neighbours," she told AFP, flashing a smile.
"So these glasses will be a great help to him and to us as a family."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
NDTV
5 hours ago
- NDTV
'Writing Is Thinking': Do Students Who Use ChatGPT Learn Less?
When Jocelyn Leitzinger had her university students write about times in their lives they had witnessed discrimination, she noticed that a woman named Sally was the victim in many of the stories. "It was very clear that ChatGPT had decided this is a common woman's name," said Leitzinger, who teaches an undergraduate class on business and society at the University of Illinois in Chicago. "They weren't even coming up with their own anecdotal stories about their own lives," she told AFP. Leitzinger estimated that around half of her 180 students used ChatGPT inappropriately at some point last semester -- including when writing about the ethics of artificial intelligence (AI), which she called both "ironic" and "mind-boggling". So she was not surprised by recent research which suggested that students who use ChatGPT to write essays engage in less critical thinking. The preprint study, which has not been peer-reviewed, was shared widely online and clearly struck a chord with some frustrated educators. The team of MIT researchers behind the paper have received more than 3,000 emails from teachers of all stripes since it was published online last month, lead author Nataliya Kosmyna told AFP. 'Soulless' AI Essays For the small study, 54 adult students from the greater Boston area were split into three groups. One group used ChatGPT to write 20-minute essays, one used a search engine, and the final group had to make do with only their brains. The researchers used EEG devices to measure the brain activity of the students, and two teachers marked the essays. The ChatGPT users scored significantly worse than the brain-only group on all levels. The EEG showed that different areas of their brains connected to each other less often. And more than 80 percent of the ChatGPT group could not quote anything from the essay they had just written, compared to around 10 percent of the other two groups. By the third session, the ChatGPT group appeared to be mostly focused on copying and pasting. The teachers said they could easily spot the "soulless" ChatGPT essays because they had good grammar and structure but lacked creativity, personality and insight. However Kosmyna pushed back against media reports claiming the paper showed that using ChatGPT made people lazier or more stupid. She pointed to the fourth session, when the brain-only group used ChatGPT to write their essay and displayed even higher levels of neural connectivity. Kosmyna emphasised it was too early to draw conclusions from the study's small sample size but called for more research into how AI tools could be used more carefully to help learning. Ashley Juavinett, a neuroscientist at the University of California San Diego who was not involved in the research, criticised some "offbase" headlines that wrongly extrapolated from the preprint. "This paper does not contain enough evidence nor the methodological rigour to make any claims about the neural impact of using LLMs (large language models such as ChatGPT) on our brains," she told AFP. Thinking Outside The Bot Leitzinger said the research reflected how she had seen student essays change since ChatGPT was released in 2022, as both spelling errors and authentic insight became less common. Sometimes students do not even change the font when they copy and paste from ChatGPT, she said. But Leitzinger called for empathy for students, saying they can get confused when the use of AI is being encouraged by universities in some classes but is banned in others. The usefulness of new AI tools is sometimes compared to the introduction of calculators, which required educators to change their ways. But Leitzinger worried that students do not need to know anything about a subject before pasting their essay question into ChatGPT, skipping several important steps in the process of learning. A student at a British university in his early 20s who wanted to remain anonymous told AFP he found ChatGPT was a useful tool for compiling lecture notes, searching the internet and generating ideas. "I think that using ChatGPT to write your work for you is not right because it's not what you're supposed to be at university for," he said. The problem goes beyond high school and university students. Academic journals are struggling to cope with a massive influx of AI-generated scientific papers. Book publishing is also not immune, with one startup planning to pump out 8,000 AI-written books a year. "Writing is thinking, thinking is writing, and when we eliminate that process, what does that mean for thinking?" Leitzinger asked.
&w=3840&q=100)
First Post
6 hours ago
- First Post
Anil Menon will be next Indian-American to go to space. Who is he?
Anil Menon, who was selected as a Nasa astronaut in 2021, is set to make his first spaceflight in June 2026. He will serve as a flight engineer with the Expedition 75 crew. Born to Indian and Ukrainian immigrant parents, Menon was raised in Minneapolis. His wife, Anna Menon, also worked at Nasa before joining SpaceX, and took part in a private spacewalk mission last year read more He is set to make his first journey into space in June next year. Image: Nasa Nasa has picked Indian-American astronaut Anil Menon for a space mission scheduled for 2026. He is set to make his first journey into space in June that year. Menon will be part of the Expedition 75 crew and will serve as a flight engineer during the mission. ALSO READ | Who is Jahnavi Dangeti, the Andhra woman likely to go to space in 2029? Interestingly, his wife Anna Menon also worked at Nasa, later joined SpaceX and took part in a private spacewalk mission last year. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD But who is Anil Menon? And what do we know about his upcoming mission? Here's a look: Who is Anil Menon? Chosen as a Nasa astronaut in 2021, he will head to space for the first time in June 2026. He will join the Expedition 75 crew as a flight engineer. Nasa has announced that Menon will travel to the International Space Station next year aboard the Roscosmos Soyuz MS-29 spacecraft. He will fly alongside Russian cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina. While on board, Menon will carry out science experiments and test new technology. The aim is to support future human missions to space and bring benefits back to Earth. He was part of Nasa's 23rd astronaut class in 2021 and finished his astronaut training in 2024. Since then, he has been preparing for this mission. He was chosen as a Nasa astronaut in 2021. Image: AFP/File Photo Menon grew up in Minneapolis. He is a trained emergency medicine doctor, a mechanical engineer, and a colonel in the United States Space Force. He was born to Ukrainian and Indian immigrant parents. He also spent a year studying at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. He holds a degree in neurobiology from Harvard University, along with a master's in mechanical engineering and a medical degree from Stanford University. Menon completed his training in emergency and aerospace medicine at Stanford and the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. Before joining Nasa, he worked at SpaceX as their first flight surgeon. He helped send the first crewed Dragon spacecraft into orbit during Nasa's SpaceX Demo-2 mission. He also helped set up SpaceX's medical programme to support future missions. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD He has worked as a flight surgeon for several SpaceX launches and Nasa missions to the space station. It was worth the wait !!! — Anil Menon (@astro_anil) September 15, 2024 Who is Anna Menon, astronaut and Anil Menon's wife? Anil Menon is married to Anna Menon, who also works at SpaceX. The couple has two children. Anna earlier worked at Nasa before moving to SpaceX. Last year, she took part in a private spacewalk mission. She has played key roles as a mission controller in several missions. Image: X/@annawmenon She is currently a lead space operations engineer at Elon Musk's company. Anna has also written a children's book about space titled Kisses from Space. She has played key roles as a mission controller in several missions, including Demo-2, Crew-1, CRS-22, and CRS-23. Before joining SpaceX, Anna spent seven years at Nasa, where she worked as a biomedical flight controller for the International Space Station. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD ALSO READ | What will Indian astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla do in space? Sunita Williams and Shubhanshu Shukla's space journeys Nasa astronaut Sunita Williams, who was part of the Crew-9 team, went on an eight-day mission to the International Space Station last year. She returned to Earth in March this year after being stranded in space for over nine months due to issues with the Boeing spacecraft, which delayed her return. Born on September 19, 1965, in Ohio, Williams is a former US Navy captain. Her father, Deepak Pandya, is from Jhulasan in Gujarat's Mehsana district, while her mother, Ursuline Bonnie Pandya, is Slovenian. Williams has proudly embraced her roots during space missions, carrying items such as samosas, a Ganesha idol, and the Slovenian flag. This was her third mission to space. With this trip, she has now spent a total of 608 days in orbit. Meanwhile, Shubhanshu Shukla has become the first Indian to visit the International Space Station as part of the Axiom-4 (Ax-4) mission. Shubhanshu Shukla was named the 'Prime' astronaut for the Indo-US mission to the International Space Station in August last year. Image: Axiom Space He travelled aboard SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, which lifted off from Nasa's Kennedy Space Centre in Florida last month. Among the personal items he carried with him were specially prepared Indian foods: mango nectar, gajar ka halwa, and moong dal halwa. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Notably, Shukla is the first Indian in 41 years to travel to space, after Rakesh Sharma's historic eight-day space journey in 1984. With inputs from agencies
Time of India
9 hours ago
- Time of India
Eggs en Provence: France's unique dinosaur egg trove
At the foot of Sainte Victoire , the mountain in Provence immortalised by Impressionist painter Paul Cezanne, a palaeontologist brushes meticulously through a mound of red clay looking for fossils. These are not any old fossils, but 75-million-year-old dinosaur eggs . Little luck or skill is needed to find them: scientists believe that there are more dinosaur eggs here than at any other place on Earth. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Join new Free to Play WWII MMO War Thunder War Thunder Play Now Undo The area, closed to the public, is nicknamed " Eggs en Provence ", due to its proximity to the southeastern city of Aix en Provence. "There's no other place like it," explained Thierry Tortosa, a palaeontologist and conservationist at the Sainte Victoire Nature Reserve . Live Events "You only need to look down to find fragments. We're literally walking on eggshells here." Around 1,000 eggs, some of them as big as 30 centimetres (12 inches) in diameter, have been found here in recent years in an area measuring less than a hectare -- a mere dot on a reserve that will span 280 hectares once it is doubled in size by 2026 to prevent pillaging. "We reckon we've got about one egg per square metre (11 square feet). So there are thousands, possibly millions, here," Tortosa told AFP. "Eggs" is not in the business of competing with other archaeological sites -- even though Tortosa finds the "world record" of 17,000 dinosaur eggs discovered in Heyuan, China, in 1996 vaguely amusing. "We're not looking to dig them up because we're in a nature reserve and we can't just alter the landscape. We wait until they're uncovered by erosion," he said. "Besides, we don't have enough space to store them all. We just take those that are of interest from a palaeontology point of view." Holy Grail Despite the plethora of eggs on site, the scientists still have mysteries to solve. Those fossils found so far have all been empty, either because they were not fertilised or because the chick hatched and waddled off. "Until we find embryos inside -- that's the Holy Grail -- we won't know what kind of dinosaur laid them. All we know is that they were herbivores because they're round," said Tortosa. Fossilised dinosaur embryos are rarer than hen's teeth. Palaeontologists discovered a tiny fossilised Oviraptorosaur that was at least 66 million years old in Ganzhou, China, around the year 2000. But Tortosa remains optimistic that "Eggs" holds its own Baby Yingliang. "Never say never. In the nine years that I've been here, we've discovered a load of stuff we never thought we'd find." Which is why experts come once a year to search a new part of the reserve. The location is always kept secret to deter pillagers. When AFP visited, six scientists were crouched under camouflage netting in a valley lost in the Provencal scrub, scraping over a few square metres of clay-limestone earth, first with chisels, then with pointy-tipped scribers. "There's always something magical -- like being a child again -- when you find an egg or a fossilised bone," specialist Severine Berton told AFP. Unique Their "best" finds -- among the thousands they have dug up -- include a small femur and a 30-centimetre-long tibia-fibula. They are thought to come from a Rhabdodon or a Titanosaur -- huge herbivores who roamed the region. In the Cretaceous period (89-66 million years BCE), the Provencal countryside's then-flooded plains and silty-clayey soils offered ideal conditions for dinosaurs to graze and nest, and perfect conditions to conserve the eggs for millennia. The region, which stretched from what is now Spain to the Massif Central mountains of central France formed an island that was home to several dinosaur species found nowhere else in the world. Alongside the endemic herbivores were carnivores such as the Arcovenator and the Variraptor, a relative of the Velociraptor of Jurassic Park fame. In 1846, French palaeontologist Philippe Matheron found the world's first fossilised dinosaur egg in Rognac, around 30 kilometres from Eggs. Since then, museums from across the world have dispatched people to Provence on egg hunts. Everyone, it seems, wants a bit of the omelette. Despite efforts to stop pillaging, problems persist, such as when a wildfire uncovered a lot of fossils in 1989 and "everyone came egg collecting", Tortosa said. Five years later the site was designated a national geological nature reserve, closed to the public -- the highest level of protection available. The regional authorities are now mulling over ways to develop " palaeontology tourism ", a move Tortosa applauds. "France is the only country in the world that doesn't know how to promote its dinosaurs," Tortosa said. "Any other place would set up an entire museum just to show off a single tooth."
